(EU) - Worlds in Our Solar System, and Planets in the Starry Heavens, and Their Inhabitants, as Well as the Spirits and Angels There: From Things Heard and Seen

102. The inhabitants and spirits of the planet Saturn have relation in the Greatest Man, to the middle sense between the spiritual and the natural man, but to that which recedes from the natural and accedes to the spiritual. Hence it is that those spirits appear to be carried or snatched away into heaven, and presently to be let back again; for whatever appertains to the spiritual sense is in heaven; but whatever appertains to the natural sense is beneath heaven. Inasmuch as the spirits of our earth, in the Greatest Man have relation to natural and corporeal sense, it was given me to know by manifest experience how the spiritual man and the natural fight and strive with each other, when the latter is not in faith and charity. The spirits of the earth Saturn came from afar into view, and there was then opened a living communication between them and such spirits of our earth. The latter, on thus perceiving the former, became as if insane, and began to infest them, by infusing unworthy suggestions concerning faith, and also concerning the Lord; and whilst abusing them with these invectives and insults, they also cast themselves into the midst of them, and from the insanity in which they were, they endeavored to do evil to them. But the spirits of Saturn feared nothing, because they were secure and in tranquillity; whereas the spirits of our earth, when they were in the midst of them, began to be tortured, and to respire with difficulty, and so they cast themselves out, one in this way and another that, till they all disappeared. The spirits who were present perceived from this, what is the quality of the natural man when separate from the spiritual, and when he comes into a spiritual sphere, namely, that he is insane; for the natural man separate from the spiritual is wise only from the world, and not from heaven; and he who is wise only from the world, believes nothing but what be can apprehend with his senses, and the things which he believes he believes from the fallacies of the senses, which, unless they are removed by an influx from the spiritual world, produce falsities. Hence it is that spiritual things to him are not anything, insomuch that he can scarcely bear to hear mention made of anything spiritual; wherefore such become insane when they are kept in a spiritual sphere. It is otherwise during their abode in the world, where they either think naturally concerning spiritual things, or avert their ears that they may not hear them; that is, they hear and do not attend. It was also manifest from this experience, that the natural man cannot introduce himself into the spiritual, that is, ascend; but when man is in faith, and thereby in spiritual life, in this case the spiritual man flows into the natural, and thinks therein. For there is given a spiritual influx, that is, an influx from the spiritual world into the natural, but not the reverse.# # Influx is spiritual, and not physical or natural, consequently influx is from the spiritual world into the natural, and not from the natural into the spiritual (n. 3219, 5119, 5259, 5427, 5428, 5477, 6322). It appears as if influx is from externals into man's internals, but this is a fallacy (n. 3721).